Video Transcript: Bryan Warson Profile
(Description: Quotation appears on screen with soft music, “There’s tremendous power in your one-on-one, face-to-face, know-your-name, know-your-local-birds customer relationships” – Jim Carpenter)
“Amy Legg, Store Owner, Warson Woods, MO” at lower left of screen, then Amy appears on screen and speaks while picture changes to Bryan helping a customer and doing various tasks in the store.)
[Amy:] When we first came up and looked at the store, Bryan was here by himself. He’d be in here scurrying around trying to to get everything done. Once we kind of started down the road and knew we were going to have an opportunity to buy the store, we weren’t sure what he was going to want to do. We had no idea if he wanted to stay or go; if he hated it here, if he loved it, what, so we sat down to have lunch with him and just started asking questions: “How do you like the store? What would you change? What would you do different?” He comes right at the heart of the matter and he says, “I’ve got ideas and I want to do this, this, this, and this. This store has so much potential and I want to help.”
(Description: “Denise Pyatt, Store Manager, Warson Woods, MO” at lower left of screen.)
[Denise:] He is great at showing how important it is to build those relationships, not just, “Okay, let’s ring up some bird seed…thanks for coming in. Have a great day.”
(Description: “Dorothy Lockard, Customer” at lower left of screen.)
[Dorothy:] The thing about Bryan is that he’s always helping you see something that was probably going on, but when you said, “I haven’t seen that,” and you go back and on your deck, it’s going on!
(Description: “Joe Hoffman, Director, Wild Bird Rehabilitation” at lower left of screen.
[Joe:] He is one of these people that when we have a question about what species a baby is or something else, he always is great at identifying.
[Denise:] It’s really about getting to know the customers on a first-name basis. We know what trips they’ve been on. He, you know, really has these friendships with customers.
[Amy:] He became the bridge between what the store was and what the store is, and he was that consistency that the customers were looking for.
[Denise:] He empowers me, the staff, the customers.
[Amy:] His name is on the customer survey at least once a day.
(Description: “Leslie Wainwright, Volunteer, Wild Bird Rehabilitation” at lower left of screen.
[Leslie:] He’s passionate. He’s compassionate. He’s intelligent. He does his homework. He’s gentle. He has characteristics that most people really don’t have.
[Joe:] He comes in and he feeds a lot of the birds and helps us clean up after them and so it’s wonderful. He’s been doing that for many years.
[Dorothy:] Bryan is so knowledgeable.
(Description: “Mike Albrecht, Customer” at lower left of screen,
[Mike:] He’s a pretty smart guy. He seems to know his stuff about what he, no I’m teasing! He’s very, very good at this.
[Amy:] He’s a guy that gets out and meets people and shakes peoples’ hands and shows them what’s out there.
[Dorothy:] I also find that he’s always adaptable to any question. I brought him some very large bird poop, but it was like, “Who’s on my deck? This is the size of a small dog!”
[Mike:] He’s always got something new and enlightening and I don’t know how to say it, but he’s just really a joy to come in to visit with.
[Amy:] The people in the community get that joy and that excitement from him and then it spreads, and all of a sudden everybody wants to see what Bryan’s looking at.
[Leslie:] Even if you didn’t like birds, and a lot of people don’t like birds, when Bryan gets done with them, at least they like birds for that day. He has that way about him.
[Amy:] My initial impression of Bryan was: “He has to stay!”
[Bryan:] I really want to answer this in the best way that I can, and that is the most inclusive, because even though I’ve been here a long time, none of this would have been made possible if Amy and Kelly didn’t believe in me. And that meant the world to me and it gave me the confidence to be me. Without that, none of this happens. I would just be a regular, “I work at the store.” You know what I mean? I love this store. The store is a part of me and I am a part of it. We are a family here and nothing has exemplified that more than than right here, right now. I can’t, again, I can’t thank you all enough. You do truly care. That is substantive. That’s what I was wanting and yearning for way back when. It’s been a journey and wow! It’s just begun, you know? I don’t know what tomorrow brings and that’s the beautiful thing about being here.